Medium to large corporations typically use a centrally managed, enterprise-wide electronic software distribution (“ESD”) application to install software on employee workstations. The ESD application allows for the software to be installed in an automated manner using standard software packages. The software is packaged in such a way that only certain approved options are offered. This allows for the software to be installed the same way for all employees. The software is usually made available via a central shopping interface such as a Web-based software catalog. Access to the software is controlled via entitlement functions such as those discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,143,409, entitled “Automated Entitlement Verification For Delivery Of Licensed Software Patent Application,” which is commonly owned by International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, N.Y. and is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
Typically, a network installation is performed using an image staging server located near the target workstation as discussed in the U.S. Pat. No. 6,928,481, entitled “Method, Apparatus and Program to Optimize the Network Distribution of Digital Information Based on Hierarchical Grouping of Server Topology and Code Distribution,” which is commonly owned by International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, N.Y. and is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. The goal is to make a standard set of software available to employees for reducing packaging and administrative/support costs (e.g., Help Desk). However, with conventional ESD systems, problems occur when employees are located in low bandwidth network locations. An employee without sufficient network resources may not be able to download the proper software packages from the ESD system.
One problem with conventional locally staged installation solutions is that special installation mechanisms and special packaging are required to support Removable Installation Kit (“RIK”) installations. For example, one conventional solution that is used to deliver multiple versions of a single product via a single CD/DVD set requires special packaging. The local installation prompts the user to enter a product key that is used to determine which version of the product (i.e., which package components) is installed. The local installation communicates with a server to verify that the product key is valid. The user experience is significantly different from that of a Web-based ESD application.
Other solutions modify a product package to include either user specific or machine specific information/components. In these solutions, entitlement is not performed independently of the package. The resulting RIK is, therefore, user or machine specific. This RIK generally cannot be used to support a wide group of customers, and therefore do not scale for medium to large corporations.
Therefore a need exists to overcome the problems with the prior art as discussed above.